The Fort McMurray Oil Barons have added some depth to their blueline after acquiring 1998 born defenceman Domenico Argento from the OCN Blizzard of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in exchange for future considerations.
The 19 year old has yet to play this season for the Blizzard and last played with the Terrebonne Cobras of the QJHL, helping them capture a league championship and appearances in the Fred Page Cup and Royal Bank Cup in 2016-17.
“He’s a puck moving defenceman that has experience at higher levels, played Junior A last year, toiled a little in the Quebec Major Junior League,” said MOB Head Coach and General Manager Tom Keca.”This was an opportunity for us to add a puck moving steady defenceman that will hopefully eat up minutes for us.”
Argento has 35 games of experience playing in the QMJHL with the Halifax Mooseheads over the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. Last season with the Cobras, the 6’3, 210lbs defenceman registered 10 points in 17 games and added another 6 points in 15 playoff games.
The Oil Barons have been hit with the injury bug of late. The addition of Argento brings the roster to 25 players but with injuries to forwards Jarred White, Trevor Schroder and Tyler Alger and defenceman Curtis Roach who is expected to be out the next 4-6 weeks with a fractured wrist, the MOB are carrying only 21 healthy bodies.
“Sometimes it’s good to have some extra bodies. We’ve got six healthy d-men right now and when you’re playing three in three as we did (the last two weekends) I thought we were a bit fatigued even if it is a state of mind it did come into play in the game against Spruce Grove,” said Keca of his team’s 3-2 loss Sunday afternoon.
The Montreal, Quebec native is expected to arrive Tuesday and Keca expects him to be in the lineup this weekend when the MOB host the Calgary Canucks on Friday and the Canmore Eagles on Saturday.
“We’ll see where his conditioning is but I think that it’s always good to get him in for at least one game because most players will play strictly off adrenaline so they’re good for one game but then when cardio sets in, the second game gets to be a struggle so we’ll assess tomorrow (Wednesday) at practice and we’ll make the call at game time,” said Keca.
